What It Costs to Be Gay in Public

As the grim news continues to come in from Orlando, as the death toll continues to rise, and the lines at the blood banks continue to grow, and the thoughts and prayers begin to stack up, one ugly phrase clanks around in my head: "angry at two men kissing."

Allegedly, during a recent trip to Miami, the Orlando shooter was confronted with the sight of two men kissing one another, in front of his child (and presumably also in front of the heterosexual couples who were also kissing one another in front of his child).

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This sight was so troubling to him—to a man with a history of violence, who was being watched by the FBI, and who was in no way inhibited from buying an assault rifle—that he felt compelled toward violence. He was motivated to commit an act of terrorism toward the gay community.

But here's the thing: Terrorism toward LGBT people is a redundancy.

But here's the thing: Terrorism toward LGBT people is a redundancy.

The FBI defines terrorism as "violent acts or acts dangerous to human life…that appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population." LGBT people around the world have been intimidated and coerced all our lives. Each one of us has moved to kiss our boyfriend on the cheek in public, or reached for our wife's hand as we walked down the street, and each one of us has pulled back.

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We have all needed to read the room, to think about how we present ourselves to the world, to determine how much of ourselves we are free to express. Each one of us, at least once, has worried whether we were coming off too gay.

Supported by a friend, a man weeps for victims of the mass shooting just a block from the scene in Orlando.

GettyGregg Newton

Too many of us have been terrorized by actual violent acts, but each of us—when we are called a faggot, when we hear a gay joke and nobody speaks up, when we watch a dozen presidential hopefuls from one of our country's two political parties promise to amend the Constitution to steal our civil rights—has been subject to an act that is dangerous to human life. We all have scars on our souls from it. All of us.

We have been terrorized by our own culture, a culture that will still, in 2016, indulge and coddle one's anger at two men kissing. We have had the need to create our own spaces, places where we can kiss and dance and dial it up as much as we want. These spaces have existed throughout time, all over the world. You can't intimidate and coerce them out of existence.

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A culture that will still, in 2016, indulge and coddle one's anger at two men kissing.

Everyone who walked through the doors of Pulse last night showed up pre-terrorized. Fifty people and counting survived a lifetime of cultural terrorism, and then lost their lives in an instant because someone was angry at two men kissing.

But they showed up. And those of us who are left will show up again. We will always show up. We are stronger than terror. We are stronger than disease. We are stronger than homophobia.

Today, as we watch pro-gun politicians, politicians who have introduced literally hundreds of anti-LGBT bills this calendar year, offer thoughts and prayers but never once mention homophobia, we will show up. We will march, we will gather, and we will be strong together.